Eastern Sierra Fall Colors Workshop

I'm heading out this weekend... anyone care to join me?

Eastern Sierra Fall Colors, a set on Flickr.

"In accordance with Federal law and U.S. Department of Agriculture policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.)

To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer."

Landscape Photography Show Episode #20 - Moon Photography

Here's the recorded tutorial on YouTube:  http://youtu.be/Wgb_r9JlKRM

I can't wait for the next full moon, but +PhotoPills will also tell you what alignments are coming up with any moon phase!
The app PhotoPills is available here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photopills/id596026805?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC

Tutorial on Moon Photography Planning

Moon in lunar eclipse, perched on San Francisco's Transamerica Building

Tonight I'll be broadcasting a live tutorial on how to determine exactly where to stand to place the moon on top of a natural or man-made landmark.  Here's a link to the event if you'd like to join us: http://goo.gl/DSXu8Z

In this example, I predicted where to catch the full moon during a lunar eclipse so its path would pass the tip of the Transamerica Building in San Francisco.  Using eclipse predictions, lunar elevation angle and compass direction, I used the height of the tower to predict how far away I'd need to stand and in what compass direction.  I mapped that point on Google Earth, showed up a little early to start shooting hundreds of photos to created the time-lapse sequence, and it turned out that I pretty much nailed it!  The center of the moon passed right across the tip of the tower.

New tools make this sort of planning easier than ever! We'll be demonstrating the PhotoPills app.  If you'd like to purchase the app to follow along on your smartphone as we show the features, follow this link to buy it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photopills/id596026805?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC

Here's a time-lapse video I created of the moon as it approached and passed the Transamerica Building:



This video was featured on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog on Discover Magazine:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/12/lunar-eclipse-time-lapse/
Lunar eclipse time lapse : Bad Astronomy

Moon Over Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

Update August 2014: Thanks to the +Royal Observatory Greenwich in London for including my moon rise image in your video about the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2104 competition!

Read my 2012 blog post about my pursuit of this image:
Moon Rise over Half Dome in Yosemite

See my notes below for tutorial blog posts and a copy of the demonstration/tutorial video described in this post.  Here's the Royal Observatory's new video on the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition:



Here are some of my lunar photography and astronomical alignment examples for you to enjoy:

Moon and Sun, a set on Flickr.

I've been teaching people for years how to pursue lunar photography.  I wrote a blog post back in 2006 on anticipating shots like these: 

     Plan Ahead for Great Full Moon Rise and Set Shots!

That planning got even easier with the creation of apps like +The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE), as I describe in this 2011 update blog post:
     Put Sunset Full Moon Rise Dates on Your Calendar

These days in addition to +The Photographer's Ephemeris I also use +PhotoPills, StarWalk and Sky Safari+ to plan my shots:

• PhotoPills: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photopills/id596026805?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC
• The Photographers Ephemeris: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-photographers-ephemeris/id366195670?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC
• StarWalk:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-5-stars-astronomy/id295430577?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC
• SkySafari 4+: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skysafari-4-plus/id766939884?mt=8&uo=4&at=10ldnC

Here's our recorded broadcast of the +Landscape Photography Show, when the developers of the PhotoPills app were kind enough to join me to provide a tutorial demonstration for their software:

http://youtu.be/Wgb_r9JlKRM?list=PLlLN6Bdq3jrnAwmOOhU0TufC9XsjbEiK2


If you find this sort of information valuable, given the new tendency of sites like Google+ and Facebook to filter out the posts of people you haven't specifically interacted with lately, you may want to subscribe to updates to this blog through NetworkedBlogs in the right column.  Since social media networks are getting much less reliable at distributing my shooting opportunity notices, tutorials, workshop announcements, or simply my latest work, people who want to stay in touch may need to connect with me across multiple networks to increase the odds of seeing a post: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, my blogs, or wherever you're active online.  It's frustrating and a little sad that social networks seem to be stepping back from the opportunity to provide reliable delivery of high quality content to people who want to see it!  

Here are some of the places you can connect with me online:

Wordpress: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

Blogger:      http://activesole.blogspot.com/

Google+ :   https://plus.google.com/+JeffreySullivan

Flickr:         http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/

YouTube:   http://www.youtube.com/user/JeffSullivanPhoto

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/JeffSullivanPhotography

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeff-Sullivan-Photography/346430679644?ref=hl

Twitter:       http://twitter.com/#!/JeffSullPhoto

Instagram:  http://instagram.com/jeffsullivanphotography

Tumblr:       http://jeffsullivan.tumblr.com/

Vimeo:        https://vimeo.com/jeffsullivan/videos

LinkedIn:    https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreydsullivan

Pinterest:    http://pinterest.com/jeffsullphoto/

500px:        http://500px.com/JeffSullivan

How Does Twitter Integrate with Photo Sharing and Social Media Networks?

Twitter is known for being a major social media network for the cable broadcast television industry, and I've had good success seeing some of my more interesting videos posted to +YouTube  go viral with the help of people tweeting about them.

According to Twitter, the appearance of tweets embedded in blogs has been improved:

Rich photo experience now in embedded Tweets
https://blog.twitter.com/2013/rich-photo-experience-now-in-embedded-tweets-3

I've tweeted photos from various networks in recent days, and I'll use Twitter's generated code to embed a few examples here.

First, lets see how a photo tweeted from Flickr embeds here in a blog:

New photo captured this week in Yosemite Valley: Storm Cloud Reflection at Valley View http://t.co/oF5kC16TIU Snowed Wed nt on Tioga Pass!
— Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) September 27, 2013

And a Flickr photo shared to Tumblr, then tweeted from there:

Photo: Sunrise Moon Set by Mt. Whitney on Flickr. As a general rule of thumb the full moon rises at sunset... http://t.co/FPLhNnUacb
— Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) September 27, 2013

Now let's try 500px:

Pic “Yosemite Falls Moonbow Star Trails” by Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) #500px http://t.co/yFePAcyUOg #startrails #yosemite #photography
— Star Trails Photos (@startrailsphoto) March 15, 2013

How does Facebook do?

Dust Spot Check at Sunrise this Morning I'm going to visit several locations this week, so I stepped outside... http://t.co/aGwXv0WjPu
— Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) September 18, 2013

What about Facebook's Instagram?

That's A Moray - today is a free day at CA Academy of Sciences at SF's Golden Gate Park. http://t.co/F0cpgfhWrW
— Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) September 29, 2013

And now a picture uploaded directly to Twitter:

Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park now 70% contained at 231,088 acres. pic.twitter.com/3IrLj6BtKC
— Jeff Sullivan (@JeffSullPhoto) September 3, 2013

How about video? Here's one of my videos recently popular on Vimeo:

#RimFire #timelapse http://t.co/vpiqm9CVjV by @JeffSullPhoto
— LA Times Photography (@latimesphotos) August 30, 2013

Now a video shared from YouTube:

I liked a @YouTube video from @jeffsullphoto http://t.co/gxcLVEKFsn Perseid Meteor Shower 2013
— Stephanie Weil (@stephaniexoxo14) August 15, 2013

How about URL shorteners, do they affect results? Here's a Flickr photo shared via Bit.ly:

The Winner is Stargazing by Jeffrey Sullivan. Congratulations Jeffrey! @jeffsullphoto http://t.co/RqPHn6a #astrophoto11
— Royal Observatory (@ROGAstronomers) September 8, 2011

At first I see no photos at all, and the same thing happens on my WordPress blog, but it seems that the Twitter posts just take a while to render on a blog..